America's Top Killing Machine

[petronius]

For the better part of a century, the machine most likely to kill an American has been the automobile.

Car crashes killed 33,561 people in 2012, the most recent year for which data is available, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Firearms killed 32,251 people in the United States in 2011, the most recent year for which the Centers for Disease Control has data.

But this year gun deaths are expected to surpass car deaths. That's according to a Center for American Progress report, which cites CDC data that shows guns will kill more Americans under 25 than cars in 2015. Already more than a quarter of the teenagers—15 years old and up—who die of injuries in the United States are killed in gun-related incidents, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

--- Snip ---

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/01/americas-top-killing-machine/384440/

The thread was locked in GD; I haven't read the article clear through yet, but here it is for discussion...

[flamin lib]

1. A couple of takeaways from the article:

"In 1911, The New York Times cited new traffic laws and gun regulations—including imprisonment rather than a monetary fine for people caught carrying pistols—as responsible for driving down down the firearm and automobile death rates compared to the year before. But the larger public health risk in those days was infectious disease, which were responsible for almost half of the deaths among Americans in large cities at the turn of the century. "

As deaths from lung and heart disease fall (like auto fatalities) the incidence of gun violence will become more apparent and perhaps a greater priority. If one watches much television the emphasis on this or that drug for this or that condition is abundantly clear. Too bad there isn't a pharmacological fix for gun nuttery.

"Today, overall accidents are the fifth leading cause of death, according to CDC data. Americans are most likely to die from heart disease—followed by cancer, chronic respiratory disease, and stroke."

The health profession has identified the causes and in some cases cures for these diseases and are doing everything possible to reduce the death rate from them from browbeating patients to spending $$$$$$ advertising. For any thinking person, the cause of 30,000 gun deaths a year seems pretty apparent. Too bad the cash flow is from increased guns and gun deaths rather than from the reduction of both.

[NYC_SKP]

3. The causes include lack of training, need to treat depression, revolving doors at prisons...

And inconsistent enforcement of existing gun laws and the need to tweak existing laws.

Possibly, in some jurisdictions, we should scrap existing laws and replace them with more reasonable modern laws.

These are the right things to do.

[ileus]

2. 32,251 killed by firearms...WOW.

[mog75]

4. I think

Suicides are included in that figure. I don't know what percent it is, but I'm guessing those deaths would have occurred with or without a firearm. Wether it be pills, rope or razor blade. Where there's a will there's a way. Does anyone know what percentage of those deaths were suicide?

[GGJohn]

5. Appox. 2/3 of firearms deaths are suicides, something the gun control organizations

always fail to note when they cite the 32,000 firearms deaths.

[beevul]

6. Roughly 2/3 are suicides.

That's why the gun control extremists refuse to differentiate between them or treat them as the different things with different solutions, that they clearly are.

[mog75]

8. 21,500 killed themselves...WOW!

I wasn't expecting it to be that high. I wonder how many of those could have been prevented if high capacity magazines were banned?

[petronius]

10. A ban on 'Hi-Caps' wouldn't be enough - we'd also need an AWB and to outlaw CCW

More seriously, here are some comments that I posted a while back on the suicide topic, with some links to other thread...

[ileus]

7. In a perfect world....

Suicides wouldn't be counted.
All drug related firearm violence wouldn't be categorized differently.
Negligent and accidental shootings wouldn't count, but instead be labeled "misuse" / "user error"
Nor would defensive firearm uses.

That would leave a handful of Criminal on innocent attacks and domestic disputes to be counted.


Firearms get a bad rap from the "guns kill people" crowd...


OH and my point was the words "killed by firearms"

[mog75]

9. so how many

Of the remaining 11,000 that weren't suicides what percentage are drug/gang related? What percent are accidental/ negligence?